Page 37 - EE|Times Europe Magazine - December 2020

EE|Times EUROPE 37

In Formula 1, Engineers Are Essential Members of the Team

they must continually improve their understanding of the dynamic There are three categories of sensors in F1 cars: control sensors,
behavior of the cars to improve vehicle performance without running associated with drive-by-wire functions (the accelerator pedal sensor
afoul of the rules that govern the sport. is an example); monitoring sensors, which track the health parameters
Indeed, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) strictly of the car, such as hydraulic system pressure; and instrumentation
regulates the technology to ensure that the importance of the driver sensors, such as non-contact temperature sensors to monitor friction.
is not undermined. Many solutions found in commercial cars, such as “A Formula 1 car has many lives,” said Watt. “During qualifying and
ABS systems and automatic the race, it becomes a lightweight racing car, with only the minimum
F1’s engineers must gearboxes, are banned in the of equipment fitted to it that we need to complete the race, but even in
F1 environment.
this configuration, the car will have over 1.5 km of wiring on-board and
continually improve Nonetheless, race cars over 200 sensors. At the opposite extreme is winter testing, when we’re
their understanding of have radically changed in proving out the car and it almost becomes a test lab on wheels.
recent years. Thanks to
“The demand for high-quality data shapes a lot of what we do,”
the dynamic behavior telemetry, race engineers he added. “The changes in both the technical and sporting regula-
of the cars to improve can monitor and improve tions over the years and the reduction of track testing have put an
the performance of the car
increased emphasis on having a deep understanding of the car every
vehicle performance by analyzing sensor data time it runs on a track.”
Watt noted that the recent changes in the Formula 1 regulations
from more than 300 devices
without running afoul of located at various points during the Covid-19 pandemic, which reduced spending by freezing
the rules. in the car. These sensors certain areas of car development, “are again reshaping that chal-
measure hundreds of param-
lenge and making us look harder than ever at cost and supply chain
eters in real time. The data aspects as well as maximizing the benefits from the areas of freedom
points are collected by a logger and radioed back to the teams via an we still have.”
antenna in the front of the car. Another FIA requirement, in force since 2014, is the use of fluid
“The car on the track is only the tip of the iceberg; teams are now flow meters (FFMs), which use ultrasound to ensure highly accurate
heavily data-driven,” Stephen Watt, head of electronics for McLaren measurements that enable instantaneous analysis of a vehicle’s fuel
Racing, told EE Times Europe. The data is “received over the paddock’s performance. Ultrasonic fluid flow measurement requires the use of
wide, 5-Mb/s telemetry link as well as offloaded from various on-board two piezoelectric transducers, which send ultrasonic pulses back and
loggers to allow the engineers at the trackside and back at the factory forth to each other and use time-of-flight calculations to determine the
to analyze the performance of the car in isolation as well as perform fluid flow rate.
strategic analysis by studying the performance of other teams.”
TELEMETRY
STANDARD ECU AND SENSORS Telemetry was introduced in the late 1980s and has been perfected
The standard ECU (SECU) is essentially a small but very powerful over the years. Two-way telemetry makes it easy to record the car’s
computer that controls, processes, and transmits large amounts of data characteristics so that the engineering team has a clear picture of
from F1 cars to teams. The control function optimizes the exchanges what’s happening on the track and can process the performance data.
with the engine, gearbox, differential, and aerodynamic system. The A much greater wealth of data is now being collected and transmitted
SECU is also the main data storage and acquisition service that pro- within just a few hundredths of second, allowing race technicians to
vides real-time values — via telemetry — to teams and race control. give drivers tactical advice in near-real time.
This allows teams to visualize the performance of their cars in real FIA officials may not be happy to read this, however, as they never
time, checking engine health, tire degradation, and fuel consumption. formally allowed two-way telemetry and even briefly banned it outright
FIA requires that all F1 teams use the TAG-320B SECU provided by when they realized the implications of teams’ abilities to use it.
McLaren Applied, sister company of McLaren Racing. The TAG-320B
provides a shared platform used by the team, the power unit provider,
and the FIA. It hosts functions ranging from the core operation of the
power unit to the seamless shifting of the eight-speed gearbox, as well
as allowing the FIA to restrict the functionality of the control software
to ensure that prohibited driver aids such as traction control cannot be
implemented (or at least to catch any team in the act if it attempts to
implement a prohibited control).
The average F1 car has about 300 sensors, and the SECU monitors
more than 4,000 parameters. During the course of a typical race, the
car will transmit about 3 GB of telemetry data as well as about 4 GB
of logging. This is just the starter seed, however; when this data is
processed and combined with other sources, such as audio and video
analysis, it can mean that a team leaves a typical race weekend with
more than a terabyte of valuable data that is drawn on again and again,
from race to race and season to season.
The sensors placed on the single-seater car monitor all the param-
eters, check that there are no problems, and allow engineers to make
immediate decisions based on the data collected. For example, if an
increase in engine temperatures is detected because the driver’s car is
very close to a rival’s, the crew can alert the driver from the paddock by
asking him to maneuver away from the rival car’s hot exhaust trail until
his own car’s temperatures drop below sensitive values. Figure 1: Standard ECU (Source: McLaren Racing)

www.eetimes.eu | DECEMBER 2020